Kentucky defends state’s abortion ban against judge’s challenge

FRANKFORT, Kentucky (LifeSiteNews) – Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is challenging a ruling by Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Brian Edwards against the state’s Human Life Protection Act and its conclusion that the law’s definition of “human being” is “vague and unintelligible.”

Enacted in 2019 and allowed to take effect in 2022, the Human Life Protection Act criminalizes all abortion except when deemed “necessary to protect the life of a pregnant mother” (direct abortion is never medically necessary, but most bans make the exception anyway to try to cut off pro-abortion fearmongering over the point). The state reported just two abortions in the first four months after the law went into effect.

Earlier this month, Edwards issued a mixed ruling in a lawsuit against the law brought by Jessica Kalb and two other plaintiffs who have since withdrawn. He agreed that the law’s definitions of “human being,” including “any member of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until death,” were “conflicting and intertwined” and “must be deemed void for vagueness and unintelligibility as to their scope.” At the same time, he rejected Kalb’s claim that the law impaired her religious freedom and did not block the law from being enforced.

Nevertheless, striking down the language defining human beings could have future ramifications for pro-life laws, so Coleman’s office has filed a Motion to Reconsider. He argued the judge’s assessment of the language’s clarity constitutes a “manifest error of law” and that the Human Life Protection Act’s prohibitions on abortion do not apply to Kalb’s fears of a “homicide prosecution” relating to in vitro fertilization (IVF).

While the IVF does indeed involve the destruction of many “excess” embryonic human beings, as a matter of law, the Human Life Protection Act only prohibits the use of a “procedure,” “medicine, drug, or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being”; i.e., abortion.

Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions. 

But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.

Coleman’s office has also worked to stop out-of-state groups from advertising services to import illegal mail-order abortion pills into Kentucky.